


Mama, We're All Gonna Die

by Lobotomite



Category: Emmerdale
Genre: Gen, Robert is the major character death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-31
Updated: 2018-07-31
Packaged: 2019-06-19 06:52:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,170
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15504768
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lobotomite/pseuds/Lobotomite
Summary: Her son is a murderer, and she's the one who has to live with it.





	Mama, We're All Gonna Die

Her baby has a gun.

Her baby has a smoking gun and a look on his face she's only seen in her nightmares, eyes wild and unhinged and teeth bared, looking like a rabid animal and not the young man she thought she knew. He'd spun to face her when she came rushing in, snarling at her to keep out and brandishing the gun ( _the gun she just heard go off, oh god, her Lachlan fired the gun_ ), but she can't, not when her baby sister is cowering against the wall and-  _god_ , Robert. She takes one shaky step towards where he's sprawled on the floor, Lachlan's angry yell bouncing off the panicked ringing in her ears, but she can't. She can't face getting there and seeing up close the crimson circle spreading on his chest, the blood trickling slowly out of the corner of his mouth, the sickening  _stillness_  of him. 

"Lachlan," she gasps, voice weak and strained. "Lachlan, you- he-" She can't bring herself to finish the sentence, as if saying it out loud would cement this as reality, but she couldn't have, anyway, Lachlan's wild scream ringing through the room and drowning out anything she might have said.

"-said  _GET OUT!_ " He's lost any control he once had, voice breaking as he comes completely apart. His hands are shaking but the gun is still very much pointed at her, and for a few long, long seconds, Chrissie is sure he's going to shoot her, sure that this is how she's going to die, by her own sons hand. It should frighten her, should  _terrify_  her, but nothing seems real yet, not Robert on the floor, not the blood, not her Rebecca trying to disappear into the wall, not this stranger with the gun in his hand and fury in his eyes. So she just stares, first at the barrel of the gun and then at her son's eyes, the hand she doesn't remember raising covering her mouth. 

And then reality comes rushing back in with a bang.

Not the gun, not at first, but the sound of the door slamming into the wall as Cain rushes in, stumbling briefly as he takes in the scene in front of him but jumping quickly into action, barreling across the room and into Lachlan. They both hit the floor and start grappling for the gun, swearing and yelling at each other, but Chrissie doesn't waste time listening to them, rushing instead to where her ex-husband remains so, so still. 

She falls to her knees next to him, trembling hands hovering helplessly over the mess of red before she realises she needs to make sure he's still alive in the first place before she tries to save him. The hazy bubble she was surrounded with is gone and she can hear the commotion from the main hall, and she hears a group of Dingles come tromping into the room while she digs her fingers into Robert's neck, desperately seeking a pulse. She has to flinch, curling over Robert and letting out a choked whimper when the gun goes off again, but when she casts a terrified glance over to where they're struggling, nobody else seems to be hurt and the gun is harmlessly on the floor, out of both of their grasps. So she takes a deep breath to steady herself and goes back to her mission, pressing her fingers to Robert's neck.

One second, two seconds, three, all draw out in agonising stillness, and then she feels a faint stirring under her finger tips, a tiny, barely there beat of his heart. So she does all she knows to do, pressing hard on the wound and shaking like a leaf, unsure if what she's doing is helping at all but not being able to do  _nothing_. She's dimly aware that the fighting across the room has stopped, knows that means her son has been taken down, but she can't think about that now, not with Robert's life bleeding out and staining her fingers red. 

She belatedly realises that she should be using something other than just her hands to stem the flow, so she keeps one hand pressed down and fumbles with her jacket with the other, starting to pull it off, before her hand is knocked away and she hears Aaron's voice next to her, a hoarse, terrified gasp of Robert's name.

The people starting to crowd around Robert now can do so much more for him than she can, so she makes room for them, pushing herself shakily to her knees and then her feet and stumbling out of the way, trying not to let her sharp pants and held back tears turn into hysterics. Aaron's desperate pleading rings in her ears and she does her best to block it out, turning instead to where her sister is still standing, hands over her mouth and tears streaking down her face. 

"Bex," she gasps when she gets close, reaching for her and being pulled up short when she sees the mess of blood coating her hands and dripping down her wrists. Bex isn't put off by the blood, sobbing and throwing herself into Chrissie's arms, so Chrissie doesn't let it stop her either, wrapping her arms tight around her sister. "Bex, oh, god, are you okay?" she asks, feeling sick as she stares at her hands smearing crimson into Rebecca's shirt. "You're not hurt, please, he didn't hurt you, did he?" She's almost dizzy with relief when Bex shakes her head against Chrissie's shoulder, sobbing harder, trying to talk through her tears.

"No, no, he didn't- tried but- but Robert-" she manages to make out, and she squeezes Rebecca as tight as she can, the mix of relief, gratitude, and guilt sitting heavy in her stomach and making her feel sick. Rebecca is barely intelligible, working herself into more and more of a panic, so Chrissie puts everything else out of her mind and focuses on her sister, the most important thing in her world right now.

"Shhh, it's okay," she lies, squeezing her eyes closed and rocking Rebecca from side to side, crimson staining her mind's eye just like her hands. "It's all going to be okay."

 

***

  

She'd thought it was bad after Alicia. She'd thought it was bad after the helicopter crash. She'd thought it was bad after her dad. But none of those was anything like this. Or rather, they were, but in the way a skinned knee is like a broken leg. Sharp and painful in the same general sense as what's to come, but weak echos of the all encompassing agony she experiences in the days and weeks after her son's true nature reveals itself. 

The worst part is, that wasn't really the reveal, was it? It's not as if Lachlan had done a good job of hiding who he really was. She can't even single out which in a long line of signs was the point of no return. The photography that pushed them to move to Emmerdale in the first place, possibly. Alicia, probably. The  _attic,_ that was far, far too late. She'd been so close to seeing it, too. So close to getting a real glimpse at what her son had turned into - what he was. What he  _is_. But then the car crash happened, and she'd let Lachlan manipulate her  _again,_ had been entirely, completely convinced that it had been her own fault. She'd felt so guilty and been so scared of losing another member of her family that she'd let it just fade away. Of course, now she knows that not only did Lachlan take advantage of her grief, he'd been the person who caused it. He'd been sneaky and conniving and without limits in trying to hide his crimes, but once he found himself in custody the confessions came pouring out. 

She's known for an uncomfortably long time that Lachlan is, well, a creep, but even at the lowest point, she'd never, ever thought that he would have a body count. But he does. His own grandfather - at the same time almost his aunt, almost  _her_. Gerry, one of his only friends. Almost Robert and Liv, when Liv had seen what nobody else could. And then, when Rebecca had gotten too close, had started to actually remember the crash and confronted him, he'd snapped and almost finished what he started. 

But Robert found them. Robert did what Chrissie hadn't been able to do and stopped it. And now Robert is gone forever.

She can't count the amount of times she'd wished this on him, back when their marriage disintegrated around her and then again when he'd ruined his own with Rebecca. The reality of it is surprising in it's weight.  It's not just the guilt of his death being at the hands of her son, and it's not just the overwhelming gratitude for saving Rebecca. They've been at odds and reluctantly civil with each other for a long time now, but she truly did love him once, and that's never going to completely disappear. 

But at the heart of it, this is her fault as much as it is Lachlan's, so she doesn't deserve to feel this grief. Not for Robert, not for her dad, not for Gerry. So she does the only thing she can do - look after her family. 

She starts as soon as she finishes giving her statement, retrieving Seb from the Dingle mob with a genuine but forceful thank you. They'd been reluctant, offering to take care of him until everything settled, but Chrissie knows her sister and she knows that Seb is going to be the first thing she wants to see.

A large part of her is terrified that Bex will blame her, when she finishes talking with the police. Not that she wouldn't deserve it, but selfishly, she couldn't bear to lose Rebecca and Seb, too. 

Sitting there waiting, trying to soothe a Seb who is picking up on the atmosphere of grief and stress, she keeps having to double check that all of the blood is gone from her hands. She'd scrubbed her hands raw as soon as she was able, she's wearing a borrowed sweater over her bloody shirt, but she can't help but be terrified she'll manage to dirty her nephew with red anyway. She looks down at this tiny, innocent boy, studies his tired, distressed face, and prays she won't warp him, as well. 

She was right, about Rebecca's priorities. She comes out of the corridor already looking for Seb, and her face almost crumples with relief when she spots him and gets there so fast Chrissie barely has time to stand up. Rebecca throwing a desperate arm around her as soon as she's made sure Seb is okay is an incredibly welcome surprise.

They don't say anything for a long time, just clinging to each other in the middle of the room, only letting go when Seb gets frustrated and starts to wriggle.

"Let's go home," Chrissie says quietly, and Rebecca bobs her head up and down in agreement, exhaustion obvious in her tear stained face.

"Please," she whispers in a tremulous voice. So they go.

 

***

 

They don't leave for a week. Rebecca is terrified, afraid even safely in the house but near hysterics at the thought of leaving, and Chrissie wouldn't want to face anyone anyway. It's hard enough being around her little sister and her baby nephew, the danger she'd had a hand in sending chills down her spine - she doesn't want to walk through the village and wonder how many of the people she sees were on her son's hitlist, how many of them were coincidences away from being another number added to his body count. 

Even more strongly, she doesn't want to inevitably run into a Dingle and have to worry about poor Aaron and Liv, over there in that suddenly empty house - or, god forbid, run into them themselves. 

So she stays inside and devotes herself to the tiny remainder of her family. She feels awful for Robert, she does, but overwhelmingly, guiltily, she's so, so glad that it wasn't Rebecca. She knows she might be going a little bit overboard, reluctant to spend even a few minutes away from her and Seb, but Rebecca is just as clingy. They spend almost all of their time together, but honestly, Chrissie couldn't tell you what they fill the time with - everything seems like a hazy memory as soon as it's over, and everything blurs together into either "before" or "after" with no real sense of time outside of that. 

She knows that they don't talk about it. They play with and soothe and feed Seb. They curl up together on the couch like they haven't done since they were kids, TV on, and Chrissie doesn't bother listening because she's so busy taking in her sister's breathing, her heartbeat, her  _life_. Sometimes she's sure that Rebecca forgets, but it's always for agonisingly brief moments and then her face is falling and she's curling defensively in on herself, and Chrissie wants to track down her own son and strangle the life out of him, for doing this to her, for taking so many lives away.

She knows she shouldn't want that. He's a monster, but he's her  _son_ , and she should still love him even after all that he's done - but she doesn't. She hasn't loved him properly for a long time, if she's honest with herself - and she has to be, now. It's too late to save all of the people who might not have been hurt if she had realised how badly she'd failed in parenting Lachlan earlier, but it would be doing them a disservice to try and hide from her role in this. Maybe that's where he got it from, she thinks, staring blankly at the television screen. Maybe he inherited it from her, that wrongness - she clearly has some of it, if she could even think about hurting her own flesh and blood like that. Maybe it was genetic. Maybe it was how he was raised. Maybe, probably, it was both. 

"Chrissie," Rebecca says, late that first night. "Do you think... I know it's childish, but... Do you think you could sleep with me and Seb? Just for tonight? I don't want to be alone." She's biting her bottom lip, eyes glittering with tears, and Chrissie wraps her arms around her, pulling her to her chest.

"Of course I can, sweetheart," she soothes. "Of course I can. As long as you want." She doesn't say it, not wanting to pressure Rebecca on making a decision one way or another, but it's a relief, having Rebecca and Seb with her when she wakes up. She stays with them the next night, too, and the night after that, settling down beside her sister and falling asleep easier than she has any right to. 

She still hasn't cried. Not since she'd stopped that night. Rebecca, though, has been doing enough for the both of them, and poor Seb tends to pick up on his mother's distress and wail along with her tears. He's safely asleep, though, when Rebecca finally brings up what her nephew has done.

"Why do you think he did it, Chrissie?" She asks, tears dripping slowly down her face, startling Chrissie with the topic even though it's been hanging over them the whole day. "Was he.... did he hate us that much?" 

"I don't know," she says after a long pause, heart picking up in her chest. "It's.... there's been something wrong with him for a long time, I think."

"He's always been... different," Rebecca says, "but I never thought... I just thought he was a bit weird. I never knew he was capable of... of  _that_."

Chrissie really doesn't want to be having this conversation. She doesn't want Rebecca to come to the obvious conclusion that Chrissie should have known, and more than that, Chrissie should have been a better parent, a better  _person,_  and then none of this would have happened. But Rebecca needs to talk about it, and it's not fair to anyone else to keep hiding from the truth, so she shoves her fear down.

"Neither did I," she says, aware that her cadence isn't quite right but unable to change it. "The signs have been there for a long time, but I just... I thought he would, that he would grow out of it. Or maybe I just didn't want to admit there was anything wrong with him." She makes herself look up and meet Rebecca's eyes. "Bex, I... I'm so sorry. If I'd just... if I'd just done  _something_..."

"No, Chrissie, no," Rebecca interrupts. "You couldn't have known what he'd do any more than the rest of us could."

Chrissie swallows heavily, heartbeat feeling heavy and undeserved in her chest, horrified to feel tears start to sting her eyes for the first time in three days. "Maybe. I'm still sorry, Bex, to you and for Robert and for all of the people he hurt. I couldn't see it, and maybe that's not my fault, but it is my fault he got that far in the first place. I don't know if- if I was so awful a mother or if there was something- something  _wrong_  that he got from me, but it's- I- I'm  _so_  sorry." The tears are coming thick and fast now, burning her eyes as her breathing hitches, and she aches deep in her chest knowing that there's no amount of tears she could shed that would undo any of this.

"Chrissie,  _no_ ," Rebecca says, surprising both of them with the fierceness in her voice. She pulls Chrissie to her this time, letting her press her face to her shoulder. "This is  _his_  fault, not yours. You're my sister and I love you and I wouldn't have gotten through any of this without you, so don't you apologise, okay?"

She doesn't deserve this, she knows she doesn't, but she clings to it anyway, sick with relief that her sister is still here and still loves her. 

"I love you," Chrissie gasps into her shoulder, and Rebecca answers in kind, squeezing her tight.

"Don't blame yourself, okay?" She says quietly, when they've both cried themselves out. "Promise me you won't torture yourself over something that isn't your fault."

It would be so easy to accept and let herself off the hook. It's what she wants to believe, it's what she'd been trying to make herself believe for so long; that Lachlan wasn't her fault. But people are  _dead,_ and she can't just pretend she had no part in that. 

"I promise," she says, feeling guilty for the lie, but it's worth it to see Rebecca's shaky smile.

"Good. Because I love you, and I need you, and Seb needs you. It's us against the world, okay?"

"Us against the world," Chrissie agrees, and she's never meant anything more in her life. 


End file.
